The Golden Legend: Prologue & 1.

Night and storm. LUCIFER, with the Powers of theAir, trying to tear down the Cross.

_Lucifer._ HASTEN! hasten!O ye spirits!From its station drag the ponderousCross of iron, that to mock usIs uplifted high in air!

_Voices._ O, we cannot!For around itAll the Saints and Guardian AngelsThrong in legions to protect it;They defeat us everywhere!

_The Bells._ Laudo Deum verumPlebem voco!Congrego clerum!

_Lucifer._ Lower! lower!Hover downward!Seize the loud, vociferous bells, andClashing, clanging, to the pavementHurl them from their windy tower!

_Voices._ All thy thundersHere are harmless!For these bells have been anointed,And baptized with holy water!They defy our utmost power.

_The Bells. Defunctos ploro!Pestem fugo!Festa decoro!

_Lucifer._ Shake the casements!Break the paintedPanes that flame with gold and crimson!Scatter them like leaves of Autumn,Swept away before the blast!

_Voices._ O, we cannot!The ArchangelMichael flames from every window,With the sword of fire that drove usHeadlong, out of heaven, aghast!

_The Bells._ Funera plango!Fulgora frango!Sabbata pango!

_Lucifer._ Aim your lightningsAt the oaken,Massive, iron-studded portals!Sack the house of God, and scatterWide the ashes of the dead!

_Voices._ O, we cannot!The ApostlesAnd the Martyrs, wrapped in mantles,Stand as wardens at the entrance,Stand as sentinels o'erhead!

_The Bells._ Excito lentos!Dissipo ventos!Paco cruentos!

_Lucifer._ Baffled! baffled!Inefficient,Craven spirits! leave this laborUnto Time, the great Destroyer!Come away, ere night is gone!

_Voices._ Onward! onward!With the night-wind,Over field and farm and forest,Lonely homestead, darksome hamlet,Blighting all we breathe upon!

(They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant.)

Choir. Nocte surgentesVig lemus omnes!

* * * * *

I. THE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE RHINE.

A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY, sitting alone,ill and restless.

_Prince Henry. I cannot sleep! my fervid brainCalls up the vanished Past again,And throws its misty splendors deepInto the pallid realms of sleep!A breath from that far-distant shoreComes freshening ever more and more,And wafts o'er intervening seasSweet odors from the Hesperides!A wind, that through the corridorJust stirs the curtain, and no more,And, touching the aeolian strings,Faints with the burden that it brings!Come back! ye friendships long departed!That like o'erflowing streamlets started,And now are dwindled, one by one,To stony channels in the sun!Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!Come back, with all that light attended,Which seemed to darken and decayWhen ye arose and went away!They come, the shapes of joy and woe,The airy crowds of long-ago,The dreams and fancies known of yore,That have been, and shall be no more.They change the cloisters of the nightInto a garden of delight;They make the dark and dreary hoursOpen and blossom into flowers!I would not sleep! I love to beAgain in their fair company;But ere my lips can bid them stay,They pass and vanish quite away!

Alas! our memories may retraceEach circumstance of time and place,Season and scene come back again,And outward things unchanged remain;The rest we cannot reinstate;Ourselves we cannot re-create,Nor set our souls to the same keyOf the remembered harmony!

Rest! rest! O, give me rest and peace!The thought of life that ne'er shall ceaseHas something in it like despair,A weight I am too weak to bear!Sweeter to this afflicted breastThe thought of never-ending rest!Sweeter the undisturbed and deepTranquillity of endless sleep!

(_A flash of lightning, out of which_ LUCIFER _appears,in the garb of a travelling Physician._)

_Lucifer_. All hail Prince Henry!

_Prince Henry_ (_starting_). Who is it speaks?Who and what are you?

_Lucifer_. One who seeksA moment's audience with the Prince.

_Prince Henry_. When came you in?

_Lucifer_. A moment since.I found your study door unlocked,And thought you answered when I knocked.

_Prince Henry_. I did not hear you.

_Lucifer_. You heard the thunder;It was loud enough to waken the dead.And it is not a matter of special wonderThat, when God is walking overhead,You should not have heard my feeble tread.

_Prince Henry_. What may your wish or purpose be?

_Lucifer_. Nothing or everything, as it pleasesYour Highness. You behold in meOnly a traveling Physician;One of the few who have a missionTo cure incurable diseases,Or those that are called so.

_Prince Henry_. Can you bringThe dead to life?

_Lucifer_. Yes; very nearly.And, what is a wiser and better thing,Can keep the living from ever needingSuch an unnatural, strange proceeding,By showing conclusively and clearlyThat death is a stupid blunder merely,And not a necessity of our lives.My being here is accidental;The storm, that against your casement drives,In the little village below waylaid me.And there I heard, with a secret delight,Of your maladies physical and mental,Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.And I hastened hither, though late in the night,To proffer my aid!

_Prince Henry (ironically)_ For this you came!Ah, how can I ever hope to requiteThis honor from one so erudite?

_Lucifer_. The honor is mine, or will be whenI have cured your disease.

_Prince Henry_. But not till then.

_Lucifer_. What is your illness?

_Prince Henry_. It has no name.A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,As in a kiln, burns in my veins,Sending up vapors to the head,My heart has become a dull lagoon,Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;I am accounted as one who is dead,And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.

_Lucifer_ And has Gordonius the Divine,In his famous Lily of Medicine,--I see the book lies open before you,--No remedy potent enough to restore you?

_Prince Henry_. None whatever!

_Lucifer_ The dead are dead,And their oracles dumb, when questionedOf the new diseases that human lifeEvolves in its progress, rank and rife.Consult the dead upon things that were,But the living only on things that are.Have you done this, by the applianceAnd aid of doctors?

_Prince Henry_. Ay, whole schoolsOf doctors, with their learned rules,But the case is quite beyond their science.Even the doctors of SalernSend me back word they can discernNo cure for a malady like this,Save one which in its nature isImpossible, and cannot be!

_Lucifer_ That sounds oracular!

_Prince Henry_ Unendurable!

_Lucifer_ What is their remedy?

_Prince Henry_ You shall see;Writ in this scroll is the mystery.

_Lucifer (reading)._ 'Not to be cured, yet not incurable!The only remedy that remainsIs the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,Who of her own free will shall die,And give her life as the price of yours!'That is the strangest of all cures,And one, I think, you will never try;The prescription you may well put by,As something impossible to findBefore the world itself shall end!And yet who knows? One cannot sayThat into some maiden's brain that kindOf madness will not find its way.Meanwhile permit me to recommend,As the matter admits of no delay,My wonderful Catholicon,Of very subtile and magical powers!

_Prince Henry._ Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernalThe spouts and gargoyles of these towers,Not me! My faith is utterly goneIn every power but the Power Supernal!Pray tell me, of what school are you?

_Lucifer._ Both of the Old and of the New!The school of Hermes Trismegistus,Who uttered his oracles sublimeBefore the Olympiads, in the dewOf the early dawn and dusk of Time,The reign of dateless old Hephaestus!As northward, from its Nubian springs,The Nile, forever new and old,Among the living and the dead,Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled;So, starting from its fountain-headUnder the lotus-leaves of Isis,From the dead demigods of eld,Through long, unbroken lines of kingsIts course the sacred art has held,Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices.This art the Arabian Geber taught,And in alembics, finely wrought,Distilling herbs and flowers, discoveredThe secret that so long had hoveredUpon the misty verge of Truth,The Elixir of Perpetual Youth,Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!Like him, this wondrous lore I teach!

_Prince Henry._ What! an adept?

_Lucifer._ Nor less, nor more!

_Prince Henry._ I am a reader of such books,A lover of that mystic lore!With such a piercing glance it looksInto great Nature's open eye,And sees within it trembling lieThe portrait of the Deity!And yet, alas! with all my pains,The secret and the mysteryHave baffled and eluded me,Unseen the grand result remains!

_Lucifer (showing a flask)._ Behold it here! this little flaskContains the wonderful quintessence,The perfect flower and efflorescence,Of all the knowledge man can ask!Hold it up thus against the light!

_Prince Henry._ How limpid, pure, and crystalline,How quick, and tremulous, and brightThe little wavelets dance and shine,As were it the Water of Life in sooth!

_Lucifer._ It is! It assuages every pain,Cures all disease, and gives againTo age the swift delights of youth.Inhale its fragrance.

_Prince Henry._ It is sweet.A thousand different odors meetAnd mingle in its rare perfume,Such as the winds of summer waftAt open windows through a room!

_Lucifer._ Will you not taste it?

_Prince Henry._ Will one draughtSuffice?

_Lucifer._ If not, you can drink more.

_Prince Henry._ Into this crystal goblet pourSo much as safely I may drink.

_Lucifer (pouring)._ Let not the quantity alarm you:You may drink all; it will not harm you.

_Prince Henry._ I am as one who on the brinkOf a dark river stands and seesThe waters flow, the landscape dimAround him waver, wheel, and swim,And, ere he plunges, stops to thinkInto what whirlpools he may sink;One moment pauses, and no more,Then madly plunges from the shore!Headlong into the dark mysteriesOf life and death I boldly leap,Nor fear the fateful current's sweep,Nor what in ambush lurks below!For death is better than disease!

(_An_ ANGEL _with an aeolian harp hovers in the air_.)

_Angel._ Woe! woe! eternal woe!Not only the whispered prayerOf love,But the imprecations of hate,ReverberateForever and ever through the airAbove!This fearful curseShakes the great universe!

_Prince Henry (drinking)._ It is like a draught of fire!Through every veinI feel againThe fever of youth, the soft desire;A rapture that is almost painThrobs in my heart and fills my brain!O joy! O joy! I feelThe band of steelThat so long and heavily has pressedUpon my breastUplifted, and the maledictionOf my afflictionIs taken from me, and my weary breastAt length finds rest.

_The Angel._ It is but the rest of the fire, from which the airhas been taken!It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is not shaken!It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow!It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!With fiendish laughter,Hereafter,This false physicianWill mock thee in thy perdition.

_Prince Henry._ Speak! speak!Who says that I am ill?I am not ill! I am not weak!The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er!I feel the chill of death no more!At length,I stand renewed in all my strength!Beneath me I can feelThe great earth stagger and reel,As it the feet of a descending GodUpon its surface trod,And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel!This, O brave physician! thisIs thy great Palingenesis!

(_Drinks again_.)

_The Angel._ Touch the goblet no more!It will make thy heart soreTo its very core!Its perfume is the breathOf the Angel of Death,And the light that within it liesIs the flash of his evil eyes.Beware! O, beware!For sickness, sorrow, and careAll are there!

_Hubert._ How sad the grand old castle looks!O'erhead, the unmolested rooksUpon the turret's windy topSit, talking of the farmer's crop;Here in the court-yard springs the grass,So few are now the feet that pass;The stately peacocks, bolder grown,Come hopping down the steps of stone,As if the castle were their own;And I, the poor old seneschal,Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.Alas! the merry guests no moreCrowd through the hospital door;No eyes with youth and passion shine,No cheeks glow redder than the wine;No song, no laugh, no jovial dinOf drinking wassail to the pin;But all is silent, sad, and drear,And now the only sounds I hearAre the hoarse rooks upon the walls,And horses stamping in their stalls!

(_A horn sounds_.)

What ho! that merry, sudden blastReminds me of the days long past!And, as of old resounding, grateThe heavy hinges of the gate,And, clattering loud, with iron clank,Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,As if it were in haste to greetThe pressure of a traveler's feet!

(_Enter_ WALTER _the Minnesinger_.)

_Walter._ How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely!No banner flying from the walls,No pages and no seneschals,No wardens, and one porter only!Is it you, Hubert?

_Hubert._ Ah! Master Walter!

_Walter._ Alas! how forms and faces alter!I did not know you. You look older!Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner,And you stoop a little in the shoulder!

_Hubert._ Alack! I am a poor old sinner,And, like these towers, begin to moulder;And you have been absent many a year!

_Walter._ How is the Prince?

_Hubert._ He is not here;He has been ill: and now has fled.

_Walter._ Speak it out frankly: say he's dead!Is it not so?

_Hubert._ No; if you please;A strange, mysterious diseaseFell on him with a sudden blight.Whole hours together he would standUpon the terrace, in a dream,Resting his head upon his hand,Best pleased when he was most alone,Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,Looking down into a stream.In the Round Tower, night after night,He sat, and bleared his eyes with books;Until one morning we found him thereStretched on the floor, as if in a swoonHe had fallen from his chair.We hardly recognized his sweet looks!

_Walter._ Poor Prince!

_Hubert._ I think he might have mended;And he did mend; but very soonThe Priests came flocking in, like rooks,With all their crosiers and their crooks,And so at last the matter ended.

_Walter._ How did it end?

_Hubert._ Why, in Saint RochusThey made him stand, and wait his doom;And, as if he were condemned to the tomb,Began to mutter their hocus pocus.First, the Mass for the Dead they chaunted.Then three times laid upon his headA shovelful of church-yard clay,Saying to him, as he stood undaunted,'This is a sign that thou art dead,So in thy heart be penitent!'And forth from the chapel door he wentInto disgrace and banishment,Clothed in a cloak of hodden gray,And bearing a wallet, and a bell,Whose sound should be a perpetual knellTo keep all travelers away.

_Hubert._ Then was the family tomb unsealed,And broken helmet, sword and shield,Buried together, in common wreck,As is the custom, when the lastOf any princely house has passed,And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,A herald shouted down the stairThe words of warning and despair,--'O Hoheneck! O Hoheneck!'

_Walter_. Still in my soul that cry goes on,--Forever gone! forever gone!Ah, what a cruel sense of loss,Like a black shadow, would fall acrossThe hearts of all, if he should die!His gracious presence upon earthWas as a fire upon a hearth;As pleasant songs, at morning sung,The words that dropped from his sweet tongueStrengthened our hearts; or, heard at night,Made all our slumbers soft and light.Where is he?

_Hubert._ In the Odenwald.Some of his tenants, unappalledBy fear of death, or priestly word,--A holy family, that makeEach meal a Supper of the Lord,--Have him beneath their watch and ward,For love of him, and Jesus' sake!Pray you come in. For why should IWith outdoor hospitalityMy prince's friend thus entertain?

_Walter._ I would a moment here remain.But you, good Hubert, go before,Fill me a goblet of May-drink,As aromatic as the MayFrom which it steals the breath away,And which he loved so well of yore;It is of him that I would thinkYou shall attend me, when I call,In the ancestral banquet hall.Unseen companions, guests of air,You cannot wait on, will be there;They taste not food, they drink not wine,But their soft eyes look into mine,And their lips speak to me, and allThe vast and shadowy banquet-hallIs full of looks and words divine!

(_Leaning over the parapet_.)

The day is done; and slowly from the sceneThe stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,And puts them back into his golden quiver!Below me in the valley, deep and greenAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughtsWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling riverFlows on triumphant through these lovely regions,Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent,And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!Yes, there it flows, forever, broad and still,As when the vanguard of the Roman legionsFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill!How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat,Vineyard, and town, and tower with fluttering flag,The consecrated chapel on the crag,And the white hamlet gathered round its base,Like Mary sitting at her Saviour's feet,And looking up at his beloved face!O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence moreThan the impending night darkens the landscape o'er!